The rise and fall of a women’s factory: The Sana textile factory in Bosanski Novi/Novi Grad

“All rivers flow from source to mouth, only Sana flows towards you” – these were the words of a famous advertisement by the Sana textile factory in the 1980s. In the ad, the folds in the cloth produced in the textile factory were as flowing as the waters of the Sana river - from which the factory took its name. The Sana factory, founded in 1948, was located in Bosanski Novi, at the crossroads of the rivers Una and Sana, in the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, at the border with the republic of Croatia. It employed more than 3000 workers in the 1980s, in Novi and in the subsidiary factories located in the outskirts of town. Sana was one among the many successful textile factories that were built in Yugoslavia in the post-war period. The Yugoslav textile industry flourished in the 1970s and 1980s, employing several thousand workers, many of whom were women. It produced garments both for the internal markets and for export abroad. Local and international trends could be followed through magazines such as Naša Moda (literally Our Fashion, that is, the fashion produced in Yugoslavia).

Sana factory magazine: spring/summer collection in 1985

Fashion trends reflected Yugoslavia’s specific form of market socialism, at the crossroads between East and West. They also reflected the hybrid forms of gendered representations that circulated in the country, and Yugoslavia’s exposure to Western fashions and advertising campaigns. In the 1980s, Sana produced its own collections, which included casual clothing, underwear, children’s clothing, and wedding dresses. The firm had around 90 shops that sold its collections across the country. In the 1980s the Sana factory – like Yugoslavia as a whole - had come a long way from its difficult post-war beginnings. A factory magazine from 1983 published the testimony of Esma, a worker who had been at the factory since its foundation in 1948, when the firm opened with the aim of helping war veterans. Esma recalled the lack of electricity in the factory and the difficult working and living conditions experienced in the late 1940s. She said that back then, “every household had only one pair of shoes”.

Cover of Sana factory magazine, 1983

By the 1970s and 1980s, Sana had become a veritable community centre. Cultural, educational and sporting activities were organised frequently by the factory trade unions. Sana workers had the right to a warm meal per worked shift, and the Sana restaurant served warm meals also to workers of other factories in town. Sana workers could also access holiday resorts at subsidised prices on the Croatian coast, and could make use of a health centre within the factory. In the course of the 1980s, however, the effects of the economic crisis started to be felt at Sana as well. The factory magazine contained workers’ complaints about the difficulty of purchasing certain products, or to afford holidays and New Year celebrations. An article from 1984, for instance, lamented the rising prices of holiday accommodations, protesting: “we are not all equal in front of the seaside”. The magazine also contained a humoristic section, with jokes being mostly about falling standards of living, rising prices and women’s everyday difficulties in combining work and family obligations.

A still from the television series 'Priče iz Fabrike' (1985)

In 1985, Radio Television Sarajevo chose the Sana factory as the location of a television series titled Priče iz Fabrike, or Stories from the Factory. The plot of the series revolved around the new factory director, a young man who came back to Novi after his studies in Belgrade and who was the son of one of the women workers. According to the director VojislavMilasevic (1932-2012), the series wanted to portray the workers' everyday life through an accessible language. Workers took part in the series as extras and the director said that there was “no difference between workers and actors” during the filming. The workers appreciated the series according to factory magazines. Even today, workers and former workers remember the series as a truthful representation of working conditions in Novi. Most remember the series as Osam Stotina Žena, or Eight Hundred Women, which was the subtitle and the opening song of the programme.

Former Sana building, Novi Grad

Today the former Sana building is largely in ruins. Part of it has been renovated to build a Konzum supermarket. A small textile workshop, Jelena, also survives behind the supermarket. The rest of the workshops are abandoned. The town of Bosanski Novi was heavily affected by the war in the 1990s. The census of 1991 recorded 60% of Serbs, 34 % of Muslims and 6% of Yugoslavs, Croats, and others. At the onset of the war in 1992, thousands of Muslim civilians were forcefully expelled after several cases of ethnic violence and torture. In 1995, the Serbian population suffered the consequences of “Operation Storm” from neighbouring Croatia. Today the town has been renamed as Novi Grad. It has a population of 30,000 inhabitants, and is part of the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina (RepublikaSrpska – RS). As in the rest of BiH, and RS, industrial production has fallen and young people are largely unemployed. In Novi, together with textiles, the metal and wood industry has also been dismantled in the post-war period as a result of failed privatisation processes and post-socialist transition.

Former Sana building, Novi Grad

The textile sector in BiH, as in the rest of the former Yugoslavia, has sharply declined in the last twenty years. In Novi, only a few textile workshops are active today, employing a few hundred women. The working conditions in the private sector, moreover, are very hard, with long working hours and low wages of around 200 KM (100 euros). Most of the women who used to work at Sana are now sitting at home with low pensions or no pension at all, since many could not get their years of social contributions recognised after the fall of the factory. Their husbands are often in a similar situation, as they lost their jobs in the metal and wood industries that also went bankrupt. A former Sana worker, who survives with a small invalidity pension, comments upon the current situation as follows: “Before the war, you know, it was really beautiful, now it’s all gone”.

Former Sana workshops, Novi Grad

The current state of abandonment in which the Sana factory lies today is saddening for former workers. As a worker who used to be at Sana for 32 years testified: “That factory, we had built it for fifty years. I had a neighbour, an old woman. She took wood to the factory to heat the place in 1948. People slowly built the factory on Saturdays and Sundays, when we weren’t at work we had voluntary actions to build the factory. We had these actions all the time. We were showing solidarity to each other, we fought. You work, and work, and you think that there is something, but there is nothing”. Former workers recall the “river of people” that was coming out of the Sana factory in between shifts, at two in the afternoon. As another worker recalls: “It was full of people, you could barely find your way. Then many remained without salary from one day to the other. Not just individuals, entire families”.

Former Sana restaurant, now transformed in a private Bingo-Tombola

Former workers remember the services of the Sana restaurant very positively: “We had a canteen, the food was great. They served a warm meal and coffee. The lunch break lasted half an hour, there were different breaks for the different shifts”. Another worker stated: “We had a meal every day, if you go for the first shift you get the breakfast, if you go for the second you get the lunch”. Beside warm meals, workers could also access subsidised holidays at the seaside: “It was great. When I started in 1966 as a trainee at fourteen years old we had everything, a warm meal, a wage, paid holidays, we went to the seaside, everything. Until the 1990s it was good. Nobody expected that things would end how they did”. Today nothing is left of the workers’ restaurant, as all machines and equipment have been stolen or sold. A private Bingo-Tombola has been installed in the premises for the last ten years.

Sana buildings, fountain

Former workers remember the time spent at Sana with nostalgia. The women I interviewed, both Serbian and Muslim, recall the sense of community and the collective celebrations held within the factory – for instance on the 8th of March. The recollections of working experiences at Sana are also associated with multicultural coexistence, with a positive time devoid of nationalism. As a former worker stated: “It was good while we worked, we all worked. No one hated each other at that time. We were singing at work”. For most former workers, present living and working conditions are very hard in comparison to the socialist and pre-war past. As another worker bitterly noted: “It won’t ever come back”. The older generation of women workers is especially concerned about the lack of opportunities for young people in town, which affects their children and grandchildren.

Former Hotel Una, Novi Grad

The abandonment of formerly significant city landmarks in Novi is also apparent when looking at what remains of Hotel Una, a former luxury hotel which now lies in ruins on the river bank, and which used to be a source of pride for the city. The Hotel figured prominently in the television series filmed in 1985. Like other architectural landmarks built as sign of socialist modernisation in Yugoslav times, Hotel Una now stands as a sign of failed privatisation, and of the social and economic damages caused by post-war and post-socialist transition.